Wings of Change

Our plan is to educate elementary and high school students across Canada about climate justice, and climate injustice. It is astounding that while climate change is disrupting the way we live our lives and will only continue to become worse, the government is doing next to nothing to educate students in public school about the causes, impacts, and solutions to climate change. As a result of this gap in Canada’s public school curriculum, we’re taking matters into our own hands. We have created a workshop called The Wings of Change to help tie climate change and climate justice into classroom discussions across the country. This interactive, skills-based workshop links the hard science of climate change to practical, community based alternatives and strategies for collective action. At the end of the workshops, participants will be asked to use words and pictures to represent the kind of Canada that they want to be living in 20 years from now. Their plans for a more sustainable Canada will be recorded on pieces of cloth that will become the feathers of giant bird puppets who will converge on Parliament Hill carrying messages from thousands of young people across the country. The workshop is unique in that it moves beyond simply informing young people about the issues by encouraging participants to find their political voices and providing them with the opportunity to be part of a larger movement. It combines principles of pageantry, theatre and collective artistic expression to deliver messages directly from young people to decision makers. Importantly, the project itself models the type of action that young people can take to challenge existing paradigms. This project combines principles of pageantry, theatre and collective artistic expression to deliver messages directly from young people to the halls of political power.